


Breaking

by Knitwritezombie (Missa_G)



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Arguing, F/M, Implied Past Relationships, M/M, Owen actually is a good doctor, Swearing, ianto as team mom, injuries, owen trying to be team leader, this is firmly anti-Gwen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26868691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missa_G/pseuds/Knitwritezombie
Summary: "Keep saying that, Ianto," Gwen said. "Maybe you'll make me believe it."
Relationships: Gwen Cooper/Owen Harper, Jack Harkness/Ianto Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 166





	Breaking

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally published on my livejournal in 2007. I'm posting it here because I'm procrastinating on grading papers.
> 
> Set post Series 1 finale.

A week after Jack had left, the four remaining members of Torchwood in Cardiff had responded to a weevil sighting near the City Centre, and what they had thought was a lone weevil had turned out to be a pack of three. The first two had gone down easily, but the third had turned out to be the leader of the pack and caused problems.

“You’re supposed to watch our backs!” Gwen was shouting at Owen from the observation platform above the operating/autopsy theatre.

“Look, love, I’m a bit busy here,” Owen shot back, gloved hands unrolling a bandage. “Can we continue this later?”

Ianto moved silently down the stairs and into the theatre, setting down a pair of Tosh's trousers before slipping into a pair of gloves, putting himself in a position to assist Owen. He ignored the pull on his back where the weevil had caught him after Tosh had fallen. His shoulder ached as well from where he'd wrenched it pulling the weevil away from Tosh and his head was pounding and causing black spots to occasionally dance across his vision from where he’d hit the concrete.

Tosh stared at them, face tight with pain. She'd only twisted her ankle, her leather jacket proving too slick for the weevil to catch hold of or tear through.

“You shouldn’t have to be doing that at all!” Gwen yelled. “You should’ve been watching her back, not haring off on your own, trying to be a bloody hero. What if Ianto hadn’t been there? That thing would have killed Tosh.”

“ Bit of a pinch,” Owen said softly to Tosh as he pressed a needle to her arm. Ianto wrapped an arm around her and settled her down flat on the table as the drugs took effect. “Well,” he called up to Gwen. “He was and it didn’t, so can you shut your face and let me get her ankle bound up?”

"Gwen?" Ianto looked up to her. "Could you please fetch the cushions from the couch in Jack's office?" It would give her something to do and hopefully forestall a bit of bickering.

With a sigh, she stomped off. The relationship between Gwen and Owen had been strained since they’d stopped sleeping together, and Jack’s absence had just made it worse.

"Thanks, mate," Owen said quietly to Ianto as he assisted. Tosh usually assisted Owen, having her own medical background to draw upon.

Ianto nodded his response, watching Owen tightly bandage up Tosh's ankle. "There you go, love," Owen said with a smile as he helped Tosh sit up. “Anything else I can do for you?”

“I’m good,” Tosh said softly. “But Ianto hit his head pretty hard.”

“I’m fine,” Ianto said, even as Owen was moving in front of him, one hand gripping his chin less roughly than Ianto would have expected, the other fishing for a small torch Ianto knew their physician kept in the pocket of his lab coat. He flinched at the bright light, the throbbing at the back of his head growing as he blinked rapidly, trying to clear the build up of water in his eyes. Owen’s hand on his chin tightened fractionally as Ianto tried to pull away.

“Doesn’t look like you’re concussed,” Owen said, clicking off the torch to Ianto’s immense relief. Owen’s fingers skimmed over his scalp, looking for bumps and Ianto tried not to shiver under the familiar sensation of fingers in his hair, for comfort after a nightmare, urging during sex, playful teasing during business hours. But at least the fingers were wrong so it wasn’t quite the same.

He hissed as Owen found the knot on the back of his head.

“Sorry,” Owen said softly as Gwen clattered around on the catwalk. "Headache?"

"Fuck yes," Ianto muttered.

"Sit," Owen ordered, guiding him to a stool. "Dizzy? Nauseous? Blurry vision?" Owen turned away for a scanner.

"Ianto, what do you want with these cushions?" Gwen called down.

"Tosh needs something to put her feet up on," he called back up, wincing at pain that sluiced through his head at the noise. "Dizzy," he answered, closing his eyes against the spinning room.

"She wouldn't have to put her feet up, if _someone_ had been doing his job," Gwen shouted down at them.

"Gwen, please," Ianto said quietly. Her voice normally reminded him of home, of his sister, but at the moment it was grating on his every nerve, not helping his general mood as the world started spinning a bit.

"What, Ianto?" she fairly snarled. "You're going to defend Owen, now? After he shot Jack? When he's done nothing but treat you like dirt for the last week?"

"Yes," he said softly, feeling the world grow faint around the edges. He closed his eyes against the slow tilt of the room. "Owen's always treated me like dirt," he said. "It's just part of his charm. He was doing his job, Gwen. Let it be."

Owen and Ianto had come to a kind of understanding a couple days after Jack had left. Owen had known he would need Ianto's help to keep Torchwood Cardiff up and running, and Ianto knew that Owen wouldn't hesitate to retcon his arse back to primary school. They'd sorted themselves out over beer and pizza, and Ianto'd come to understand that Owen wasn't quite the prat he pretended to be, and Owen had become convinced that Ianto didn't have a large stick up his arse.

"Ianto?" Owen stepped up in front of him again, grabbing his chin and forcing him to look up. "Ianto, there's blood all over your jacket. Where else are you hurt?"

"Let it be?" Gwen all but screamed. "He fucking left you two with a sedated, bleeding weevil, all but guaranteeing that another would be drawn out to scavenge."

"Explains why I'm lightheaded then," he tried to joke. "Weevil got me on the back," Ianto said, grunting when Owen tugged his suit jacket from his shoulders. He didn't think it had been that deep.

"Did you ever consider," Tosh put in calmly, "that it was part of the plan, Gwen?"

"Plan?" Gwen screeched. "Since when do we use each other as bait for weevils?"

"Fuck," Owen swore under his breath.

"Bad?" Ianto asked.

"Yeah," Owen answered simply. "You didn't feel it?"

"Wrenched my shoulder when I fell," he admitted. "I hurt all over."

"We've done it before, Gwen," Tosh was trying to explain.

"Well, I haven't fucking done it before!" Ianto heard Gwen stomping around on the grating. "You could have died, Tosh!"

"But I didn't," Tosh said patiently. "Ianto was watching my back, Ianto and I were watching Owen's back, and Owen was tracking the other weevil. We made a mistake on not expecting the third weevil."

"Jack never would have-"

"Jack did," Ianto said firmly, breath catching as Owen stripped off his shirt. "More than once." He took an unsteady breath as his shirt came away from his back. "Jack's not perfect, Gwen. He's fucked up, too. And you may not have noticed, but Jack's not here."

He should have expected the righteous outrage he got in response to that. "Of course I've fucking noticed!" Gwen wailed.

"Tosh, I'm going to need your help," Owen was saying under Gwen's ranting. "He needs stitches, and I'm not going to be able to do it myself."

"Sure, but I think I'll need to sit down."

"Of course Jack is fucking gone!" Gwen was screaming. "We betrayed him, all of us. Why wouldn't he have run off after that."

"And whose fault was that, Gwen?" Owen tossed up at her. "Who led the rebellion against Jack?"

"You did!" She spat.

"No." Ianto said. "You did." He let Owen guide him over the table Tosh had just limped away from. "You're the one that opened the rift. You're the one that made it possible for Owen to shoot Jack. You were so desperate to get Rhys back that Jack had to sacrifice himself to save the world from your desperate attempt to hold on to a life you didn't seem to want." He sagged as Owen pressed him gently onto the table, felt the warning pinch on his back before the local anesthetic was injected.

"When did you start taking Owen's side, Ianto?" Gwen asked sharply. "And since when are the rest of you absolved of what happened?"

"Jack forgave us, Gwen. All of us. I've come to terms with what I did. Have you?" Ianto turned his head, resting his cheek against the cool metal table and looked up at her.

"I-" Gwen seemed to have lost steam. "I."

"Feel that?" Owen asked.

"Feel what?" Ianto responded.

"Good."

"And I can't help but notice," Tosh said softly near Ianto's ear, her voice easily carrying up through the tiled room. "That you're only upset with Owen because I was visibly injured, but you haven't said a word about the fact that Ianto's bleeding all over the place. And that you weren't there to watch our backs when you went tearing after Owen."

"I didn't know," Gwen muttered. "Ianto wears a fucking mask all the time," she said bitterly.

"And you were too busy screaming at Owen to really notice," Tosh said dryly. "But don't worry, he's going to be fine."

"Since when do any of you care?" Gwen shouted. "It's Ianto - he's nearly gotten us all killed, he shot you, Owen. He's the fucking teaboy."

"And he's saved my life at least twice in the last year," Tosh said proudly.

"And you apparently have no idea how much of the hub he actually runs," Owen said dryly. "So wrapped up in your own guilt and drama that you haven't noticed that he hasn't left the hub in nearly a week. That when he sends us home at the end of the day, he stays on."

Gwen snorted. "The rest of us have lives."

"Yes, Gwen," Ianto said quietly. "I don't have a life outside of Torchwood. This is my life." He felt Tosh squeeze his hand gently. "Jack was my life. You all are my life. You accuse me of wearing a mask all the time, but at least I'm not wearing at least two different faces."

"Aren't you, though?" Gwen tossed back. "How long were you sleeping with Jack right under our noses? How long was your cyber-girlfriend in the basement while you serenely smiled at us all? Were you sucking Jack's dick the whole time?"

"What the fuck's gotten into you, Gwen?" Owen asked. "Ianto, lie still."

"Not that it's any of your business," Ianto said tiredly, "but six months, a year, and no, that didn't start until after the cannibals." Ianto couldn't help smirking a bit at Owen's groan. "I did what I needed to do for the woman I loved," he said quietly. "You almost destroyed the world for a man you claimed to have loved but couldn't stand to be around. I nearly killed you for a woman I was completely devoted to. I would have died for Lisa, Gwen. Maybe I should have said something to Jack, maybe I should have let her go from the beginning. I fucked up, and I have to live with that."

"You loved her so that made it okay?" Gwen asked. "I love Rhys. I opened the rift to get him back. Why is that so much different from what you did with Lisa?"

"I wasn’t sleeping with one of my co-workers while professing my love," Ianto muttered. "We're human, Gwen. We make mistakes. But right now, we have to keep this team together so we can keep on with our jobs."

Owen muttered an instruction to Tosh as Ianto took a deep, shaky breath and continued. "Jack's gone, but we're still here. We have a job to do, and if we can't work together, we may as well blow up the rift ourselves. Because if we can't pull it together, there won't be a Torchwood for Jack to come back to."

"Why would he come back?" Gwen asked. "You said it - we all betrayed him."

"Jack didn't leave because we turned on him," Owen said.

"You can't know that," Gwen spat.

"I do," Ianto said firmly. "He didn't just disappear, Gwen. He went with the Doctor, and he'll be back."

"You can't know that," Gwen repeated, though some of the strength seemed to have gone out of her words.

"Yes, I do," Ianto said again. "I may not have known the Captain as well as you did, or in the same ways, but I do know that he'll be back. Hopefully with the answers he's been looking for."

"Alright. Gwen, go make yourself useful, yeah? Ianto, hold still or I'll sedate you," Owen threatened. "We'll continue this conversation when I'm not trying to put stitches into someone and after I've had some coffee."

"Gwen," Ianto called out. "He will be back."

"Keep saying that, Ianto," Gwen said. "Maybe you'll make me believe it."


End file.
